I think all Mr. Lifton meant was that torture is unreliable, inefficient and overly destructive for the information gained while it brands the torturer and the system/group supporting it in a negative way and can easily lead to paranoia which causes senseless mass torture of people who know nothing. Very sorry to see the earlier comments on homosexuality.

I listened to the Robert Jay Lifton part of the program and enjoyed it a lot. Here's a post I made afterward to my mainstream site knoxnews.com:

"Throughout the interview Robert Jay Lifton carefully established his liberal cred in all matters (I guess he felt it necessary because his work has brought him into contact with some unpleasantly unliberal types), and on the issue of torture he waxed eloquent about how unreliable torture is.

I'm opposed to the U.S. practicing torture, but while listening to him I was thinking to myself, this is pure horsepoop, because if the persons being tortured have real knowledge, then torture is a very effective way of extracting it.

Just about that time a fellow whose Spanish class I was once in, who was reputed to have been a political prisoner in Argentina, called in to the program and also told Lifton that his assertion was incorrect, that in Argentina the torturers would go round and round from one prisoner to the next, torturing each one to get bits of information, taking that slight info on to the next one, extracting a bit more, and so on until they had the info they needed to round up subversives they were searching for.

Even the socialist moderator of the program (Phillip Maldari, who I think is always an excellent host) chimed in that the Nazis had been very successful using torture against the French underground during WWII to round up other members of the underground.

Lifton replied that that was true, but that torture was still generally unreliable! Hey, it's not unreliable, Lifton, if you torture a 100 people and 10 of them end up giving you the information you want! From the torturers' point of view, that is 100% reliability!

I bring all this up about this distinguished professor at Harvard, bobo, because I think it illustrates to the utmost the deep dishonesty (unconscious or conscious, I don't know) of so many liberals of even very high accomplishments and intelligence who will not cop to even the simplest and plainest facts!

That was a wonderful thread on gay marriage right from the git-go....I was extremely impressed with some of the posts opposing gay marriage that were of a thoughtfulness I'd never seen here before. That knoxnews shut it down and left us with only this piece-of-trash article and thread is pathetic."

White gays are neandersexuals minority gays are self hating pathetic humans! You can show me a million gay dogs & nature will tell you that something is wrong with it!

Homosexuality is a disgusting abomination & you straight folks who like butt holes are gay & deep in the closet!

Homosexuality is a stone throw from pedophilia! Gay white people are benefactors of white supremacy.Most gay men were molested by pedophiles as youth.being gay is not like being black.It's a horrible disservice for sexual deviants to align their movement with minorities.Homosexuality is a death culture used to keep non white populations in check.If a relationship cant produce life,It's just lust & sex.Unless your a wealthy European male your homosexuality comes from self hatred,you tell the world you would rather be a woman than stand up to white supremacy! Greek & roman culture are historically gay with tons of men molesting boys have fun with your death life style.As a DJ i have seen homos practice open racism towards black males in their clubs.